The Lost Padre Mine
Dona Ana County in southern New Mexico has a long mining history. Ancient people-such as the Toltecs, Hohokam, and Aztec-went there to collect precious metals, including silver, copper, gold, and lead. This attracted the interest of the region's first Spanish settlers. Drawn by tales of gold, many of them set up rudimentary mines in Dona Ana during the seventh and eighteenth centuries. Legend has it that one of these settlers was a man by the name of Padre Phillipe La Rue.
Padre is the Spanish word for priest. As his name suggests, Padre Phillipe La Rue was a priest. In 1797, he answered a call for missionaries in the new world and was sent to a small farming village known as Chihuahua. According to the legend, one of Chihuahua's residents was an old soldier who claimed he had discovered a rich deposit of gold. Shortly before his death, he gave La Rue a vague description of its location.
Eventually the padre headed north with some of his followers. They settled two days from Paso del Norte, across the Organ Mountains, just east of El Camino Real. A mountain surrounded by a spring-fed basin was seen nearby, just as the soldier had described. There they found the vein of gold and began mining, smelting, and casting the gold into bars. It is believed that La Rue mined the rich vein for several years. He stopped reporting back to the Franciscans who had sent him to his post. This lead the Franciscans to send a search party for him.
La Rue was alarmed when he learned the search party was looking for him. He assumed they would take control of his mine and ordered his followers to hide its entrance. He and his followers were questioned about the mine's location but refused to reveal it. Some say this refusal lead to their murders because LaRue and his followers disappeared shortly after and the mine was abandoned. Stories have been told about the Lost Padre Mine ever since.
Is This Story Fact or Fiction?
It's hard to say whether the story of the Lost Padre mine is just a myth or if it is a true tale. Historians have been unable to locate written record of a priest named Phillipe La Rue. Yet the location described in La Rue's story does seem to exist. A two-day trip north of Paso del Norte would have brought the padre and his followers to La Cruces. The Organ Mountains and San Agustin Peak are just east of there. This pass is located on the lip of a wide basin now occupied by a military testing area known as the White Sands Missile Range. It is here that in 1937 Milton E. "Doc" Nos claims to have found a cavern containing gold while on a hunting trip. Is it possible this cavern contained gold from the Lost Padre Mine?
After reading answer the question, According to the legend of the lost Padre mine, who discovered the mine and why was it abandoned? Amswer in 2-3 sentences.
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